Great Minnesota get together redux

TOPWLH and I love the Fair and it turns out that TCWUTH having been raised by us also loves the Fair.  She came home in August of the year of her birth and did not get to the Fair that first year but after thinking about it pretty carefully both of the parents are firmly convinced that the next year we bundled her 14 month old self into that blue stroller we had and we think maybe even walked all the way to the Fair from where we lived in Saint Paul.  She has been to the Fair at least once every single year since.

Today was the second Saturday, the Fair is starting to wind down.  Each of us had already been there at least once but today the three of us went together.

And in a not very amazing at all turn out for the books, we all had fun.

Everything is BIG at the Fair.  We walked past this on Thursday on my first attendance and I pretty much instantly regretted having passed it by.

I have no idea.  Sparks trailers?  Sparky the trailer wonder dog?

I have no idea except that I do know that it is BIG.

Here's the part where I pretend that Wireless was actually at the Fair working today and that we just met her there when her shift concluded.

Totally not true.

But she does say that that specific product is one that she does ship to Australia.  I am not sure if I would recognize what is a good deal on a pretty major riding mower but anyone interested can probably discern the details on the flyer posted there by the right front wheel.  Already marked down twice, now only $2,499.

The late afternoon Saturday crowd was at least a tiny bit oppressive.  Most of the Fair attendees are urban residents.  We suspected that the crowd might be thinner the closer we got to the farm animals.  The girl had seen the largest boar but had not viewed any cows (and who doesn't love the occasional Guernsey and Holstein?) so we started filtering our way through the masses over in that direction.  We decided that the easiest way to actually get anywhere was to go through the buildings.  The people in the streets were often in stupefying numbers.  In the barns there were occasional gaggles of too many people but less so than outside.  And the sun wasn't beating down on our heads when we were in the poultry barn.  But who even knows what kind of chickens those are? 

The one here on the right is the best Guinea Hen.

So many chickens, so many extremely odd looking fowl.  I highly recommend the Poultry Building.

And by the way they also had rabbits and in the judging arena as we passed by they had minature goats.

You absolutely CANNOT go wrong at the Minnesota State Agricultural Exposition (aka the Fair).

So we got through the cattle barn with only a single instance of oops I better get out of the way there are cows coming.

The farm where I spent time as a child featured a multi-breed milk cow herd.  Uncle Johnny had some Holsteins but there were also Guernseys and some at least half Brown Swiss.  So I have a tiny bit of residual recognition of what all of those animals are there inside the barn.  I know a Guernsey, I know a Brown Swiss, I can tell the difference between dairy and beef.  Geez, I was a town kid and I have lived in a huge metropolitan area all of my adult life.  Why oh why do I love the cattle barn?

I also love that the Cattle Barn features the Moo Booth, the Gopher Dairy Bar, the absolutely without any doubt or qualification best place in the state to obtain a milk shake/malt.

None of us had really explored the new West Entrance so we all headed over there.

I have posted this piece of pavement a couple of times.  It is the new side entrance to the Midway directly from the new entrance area.

It provides a completely different approach.

We visited the state Fair museum.  There is lots and lots of interesting stuff in there, not any of it stuff that you absolutely have to see or your life will have been worthless, but interesting stuff.

They have a map of the grounds in 1913 laid out on the floor.  The current Fine Arts Building and that Expo Center next to it up at the north end of the Fair are original buildings from 1907.  They were the original Sheep and Poultry Buildings.

Also inside the museum is a bunch of interesting stuff from back when they had car races at the Grandstand race track.  All of that is gone now but Dick Trickle's racing suit is still here.

I am a little uncertain what the exact sequence was that led us back over to the Horticulture Building (we ended up walking over 5 miles today) but I do know that the Girl wanted to see the Crop Art and she wanted to see if she could find the place where they sell single apples (I suspect all of the fried food may have induced a craving for a healthy snack). Anyway, we were back in the building and she wanted to see the giant pumpkin. Honest to Pete, I am not sure if I have ever been in that room before. And I have definitely been missing out.

Weighing in at 793 POUNDS, this year's state's largest pumpkin.

That thing is incomprehensibly huge, perhaps on a incredulity scale even a higher score than the big pig.

An 800 pound pumpkin!

And lots of other interesting squashes and assorted vegetables.  Here are both the first and second prize awards for one of my new favorite vegetable friends, the spaghetti squash.

And the turban squash.  And some banana squash, and some acorn and that looks like zucchini over there and some yellow summer squash and on and on.

There was another table with an extensive display of turnips.

Are we having any fun yet?

Well, how about if within yards of the state's largest pumpkin you have a selection of the judged to be finest miniature pumpkins in the state?

And then we got ice cream at a church dining hall.

There are only two of those things left on the grounds, they have to be patronized and cherished.  They represent the Fair as it existed long ago.

We took her to the Fair every year when she was a child.  To entertain a child you have to go to the midway and play some games.  Dang if she didn't end up being good at one of them.  Now we still go there every year and almost every year she wins something.  This year it took her exactly ONE GAME to score.

I believe she has given it a name.

We also like and have been successful at that launch a frog into the lilypad game.  She also scored at that on her first try.

It's some sort of ninja banana.

It was getting dark, certainly people at the Fair with children should have been heading towards the exits, even people who were there with their thoroughly adult children.  We made a final stop for a three-way shared extremely worthwhile lobster roll.  We couldn't find a place to sit in the actual lobster roll place but we were able to locate a table and three chairs at the next door Andy's Grille.

We all love the Fair.